The overarching goal of the training program is to provide systematic predoctoral research training (to six students annually) in the areas of family violence and sexual assault with an emphasis on the training of women and minority students. A program goal is to train (overall) 75 percent women and 50 percent minority researchers. Students are encouraged to remain in the predoctoral NIMH training program for at least three years and, when appropriate, up to five years. A specific aim of the program is to teach students a variety of methodologies and multivariate approaches that can be used to investigate variables from different ecological levels (i.e., individual, family, community, and culture). An emphasis is placed on the development of theory-driven, programmatic research approaches that can be used to investigate basic and applied questions. The training program also focuses on the increasingly complex practical, ethical, and legal difficulties associated with conducting family violence and sexual assault research. Although the research areas of the core faculty (as indicated by their training and published research) represent a broad array of interests in terms of problems and variables studied, the training program has been and will continue to be located in the Department of Psychology and the Center for the Study of Family Violence and Sexual Assault, and all trainees will receive a doctoral degree in clinical psychology. Research training is supported by the Department of Psychology facilities, the Center for the Study of Family Violence and Sexual Assault resources, and a large Psychological Services Clinic. The research training activities are conceptualized as representing three overlapping domains: background knowledge, research skills, and practice-related skills. Based on these three general domains, thirteen specific training objectives guide the student training. Several procedures, including student assessments, are used to evaluate the extent to which the program successfully completes each training objective.